Black flags and racial hatred in Tower Hamlets: Being told to ‘f*** off Jew’

The Guardian today reported on an incident at the Will Crooks estate in Poplar High Street last night when journalists and a “passer-by” were sworn at by a group of youths.

The group was guarding a black flag they’d erected over the gates to the estate. The flag, which bore Arabic lettering, was believed by some who live nearby to be the ISIS flag.

Experts from the Quilliam Foundation have since assured me it was not. They say it is the shahada, the Islamic testament of faith, superimposed on a black flag. They think the message is: it’s your Islamic duty to support Muslims in Gaza. It is also said that by using a black, which is the colour of war in Sunni Muslim traditions, the message has jihadist overtones.

But I suppose it’s intent that matters. Who put these youths up to it? Did anyone? Are they actually thinking about what they’re doing?

I’ve also heard it argued that this is “Lutfur’s legacy”. The argument runs that by so frequently shouting racism and Islamophobia, he and his team have encouraged (unwittingly or not) an angry, unbalanced outlook. It’s said his decision to raise the Palestinian flag at the town hall last month increased this fervour.

While I think the town hall flag decision was unwise in a borough like Tower Hamlets (I understand his reasons, but I think there were other ways to demonstrate solidarity), I’m not sure he can be blamed for the current outbreak of anti-Jewish hatred. I suspect it’s been there a while.

I also think Lutfur has a good record in this area. He issued a strong statement after last night’s incident, which you can read below. (UPDATE AT 4.30pm: I’m told his office is also trying to calm the situation this afternoon: I hear the youths are being encouraged by some elders to erect more flags. Watch this space.)

That said, we need far more of this firm language. These kids/idiots quite possibly don’t even realise how prejudiced they are. It’s as if they’ve lacked firm parenting or teaching on the issue. And let’s be clear, this is not an attempt to smear all youths in Tower Hamlets. But there seems to be a terrible silence towards those who hate from those who should know better.

Lutfur needs to lead on tackling this. Perhaps special inter-faith task forces are needed to teach in mosques, schools and colleges…about anti-Semitism, and anti-Muslim hatred.

I WAS told this morning by a community activist in east London to be kind in this article to the Bengali Muslim youths who threatened violence last night…and who told me to “F*** off Jew, you’re not welcome here.”

So let me state her well-meaning view that they’re “good boys” and that they’ve been raising much money for the victims of the terrible violence in Gaza.

My wife, a Bengali Muslim herself, disagrees.

She thinks they’re a “disgrace”, both to their families and to their shared community.

My wife is always right.

Until a few days ago, the gates to the Will Crooks estate in Poplar, Tower Hamlets, were adorned with posters calling for an end to the siege in Gaza.

Flying atop the gates was the flag of Palestine.

Then someone–and it’s important to find out whom–had the bright idea of replacing that flag with what many in the area took to be something more sinister.

I received a tip-off about it last night. I was told the black “ISIS” flag was flying there. I was sent a dark grainy photograph but it was difficult to make it out.

So I stopped by the estate on my way home.

With no wind, only a few Arabic letters were visible on the flag. I took out my phone and started taking pictures from different angles.

A few shouts were thrown my way. A group of five or six youths approached me. They asked what I was doing.

Just taking pictures, I said.

I asked them to explain the black flag. They said it represented their Muslim faith. Then they asked for £5. “It’s our flag, we charge people for taking pictures,” they said.

I tried to keep it light-hearted: I joked I was a good photographer; they should be paying me £5.

A few more youths, all of them mid-late teens, a couple a little older, joined the group.

Then one stared at me.

“Are you a Jew?” he asked.

I’m not. I have a large nose; I fitted his stereotype.

I glared back at him. “What if I were? Would that be a problem for you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “F*** off Jew, you’re not welcome here.”

I looked at one or two of his mates. “Your friend wants to be a bit careful using language like that,” I said.

Another one, apparently more sensible, told him off. This older one then asked whether I was “the police”.

I asked him whether I looked like police. He said I did. I told him if I were, I’d probably be arresting his mate for what he just said.

“You wouldn’t have the balls, man,” he said. “The police don’t have the balls to arrest us.”

The crowd around me had grown again.

“Are you a journalist?” another asked.

Now, I’ve been covering Tower Hamlets for nine years. I’m well known among political activists, and to some I’m a target. A crowd outside the venue for the notorious Tower Hamlets council election count in May started yelling at me when they recognised me walking home.

So on this occasion yesterday, I answered: “What if I were, would that be a problem?”

They said it would be. “We don’t want journos here. They call us terrorists.”

I didn’t count, but I think there were some 15 youths around me by this stage.

Then an older man appeared. He told me to leave for my own safety. He said I was inflaming tensions. “Mate, there’s going to be an incident if you stay,” he warned.

I told him they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with anti-Semitic abuse, that they needed to learn intimidation wouldn’t work.

So I told him I was staying.

Then another (white) man appeared. He had a professional camera and took a few photos of the flag. The youths surrounded him; they demanded his camera. They wanted to delete his photos.

The photographer was from The Guardian. Their reporter, Rajeev Syal, appeared next to me. We know each other.

The youths asked who he was. He told them he was a journalist.

“Ah,” they said, pointing at me. “So you are a journalist.”

Then one voice, then several: “F*** off Jews. We don’t want Jews here, f***k off Jews.”

The three of us then headed for the photographer’s car, parked just down the road. They followed us.

More abuse, more demands for the camera, then warnings of violence unless we left.

We left.

The Guardian reported an abridged version of the story this morning. I’m the “passer-by” mentioned in that article.

There’s been some debate whether the black flag was that of ISIS, or merely a symbol of the ‘shahada’, an affirmation of Muslim faith. It was probably the latter.

However, most agree that placing such symbols or words on a black flag has violent jihadist overtones; replacing the Palestinian flag for that one was a provocative act.

About five minutes’ walk away from the Will Crooks estate is the Tower Hamlets town hall.

There last week, the borough’s directly elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman, ordered the flag of Palestine be raised as a “humanitarian gesture of solidarity” with Gaza.

His decision created national headlines.

Some applauded his principles; others worried his action would stoke the fires of division, that his example would somehow legitimise hatred among those less able, or willing, to spot the difference between the policies of an Israeli government and the views of the British Jewish community at large.

But to the mayor’s credit, when he heard about the incident in Poplar last night, he asked council officials to have the black flag taken down.

In actual fact, the flag was removed before they arrived this morning… by the community activist I mentioned earlier.

However, Mr Rahman said: “I will not stand for anti-Semitism or any other form of hate in this borough.

“I am deeply concerned by media reports of abusive language and will be liaising closely with the police on this matter.”

The bigger, troubling question for him, however, is does he have a problem with a significant section of the youths in his borough?

It may well be that yesterday’s incident was just local hooligans looking for a cause and identity, and acting territorially on their estate.

But I think there’s probably more to it than that. They seemed to want a Jew-free zone.

The conflict in Gaza has unleashed what I think has been latent anti-Semitism in the minds or far too many in Tower Hamlets.

A few years ago, I was called ‘Ted Jewry’ by one former councillor.

He later apologised.

But social media, particularly during Ramadan, when the violence in Gaza was at its peak, was awash with pro-Hitler prejudice against Jews.

The terms ‘Jew’ and ‘Zionist’ have been used interchangeably as a form of abuse.

And all this from sections of a Muslim community that has quite understandably felt aggrieved at rising levels of Islamophobia directed their way in recent years.

Every year, a delegation from Tower Hamlets marches to a nearby mural in Cable Street to pay homage to the Jews and anti-fascists who stood firm in 1936 against Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts.

Anyone will condemn the bigotry displayed last night that you report and also be concerned about such spreading.

But whilst Jeory can’t do much about what happens on that estate he can look at his blog and despair – the latent and sometimes open Islamophobia that dominates here is the very same poison.

Incidentally, taken that the flag was just a Muslim protestation of faith and not an ‘Isis flag’ (or more correctly, the flag of the new state that its supporters claim has been set up – the Islamic state) can I take it that all Christian slogans, banners, signs etc. should also be purged for the same reason? No, of course they shouldn’t – so what’s wrong with someone sticking up a Muslim (Christian, Sikh etc.) flag?

I think a black flag can mean many things in Islam – I was told those that I saw in Lahore denoted ‘Shi’a’, but I’m not sure – there is a widespread lack of accurate knowledge about such matters, even by co-religionists, in the same way that many Christians would be very shaky about other than basic Christian theology and practices.

And so what if it is ‘martial’, this communist (and many others of other views) supports the military resistance in Gaza.

Southpark, you apologist, next you’ll be telling us that it’s not a beheading but a very close shave.

You know what it means and so do the people putting it up. We all watch the news! Don’t you recall the British Jihadi ISIS idiot saying he wouldn’t come back unless for jihad and the “black flag of Islam” was flying over Downing Street.

Yes you do. You know what it means but yet you lie and say you don’t… it’s curious why you lie so, what are you trying to hide?

Well, well, well, another apologist for Islamist bigotry starts shouting Islamophobia whenever that fascistic ideology is exposed for what it is. When youths on our streets start shouting “F**k off Jews. We don’t want Jews here” its time to stop the political posing and take action.

Maurice – what lie? I confirm that my line that a ‘black flag can mean many things to Muslims’ is correct. It can be related to Shi’a Islam and it can indeed be a ‘jihadist’ flag (which makes the comments of the Quillam foundation – “They say it is the shahada, the Islamic testament of faith, superimposed on a black flag” – odd as they would presumably also know such can also be referred to as ‘the flag of jihad’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Standard#mediaviewer/File:Flag_of_Jihad.svg – but who would rely on a bunch of state touts like them anyway?)

However, this is to miss the crux of the matter. So what if someone puts up a Jihadist flag. Should Country and Western events be raided to seize any Confederate flags (the US Civil War killed a lot more than recent jihadists did.) Should the Nazi swastika be banned from public display?

In addition, what understanding will a bunch of anti-semitic losers, who put up the flag, have of the religious/political significance of such? None, I suspect. And what is the influence they have – less than zero – except to provoke nightmares in the few remaining Frinton-on-sea Daily Express reading grannies about Muslims coming to kill them in their beds.

When I wrote “the flag was just a Muslim protestation of faith” I wasn’t lying but stupidly relying (and repeating) on the point from Quillam – and which I wrote (and discovered later) does not give the full story.

The influence of these losers is to mark out local territory – to say who can and who cannot move freely on the Will Crooks estate and the surrounding area. You know, there’s still a few elderly Jewish people that live in TH – people that have lived here their whole lives. Of the people I know, all take care not to mark themselves as recognisably Jewish. So not just “grannies” in Frinton that are worried.

It is interesting how unwittingly equate the Swastika with the Black Flag of Islam. I will let that point just rest there like that…

I think you are missing the point, communist. The whole point is the CONTEXT of what is going on. People waving a very similar black flag with Arabic writing on it have recently captured Qaraqosh and emptied that city of its Christian inhabitants. They have driven 200,000 innocent people (which utterly dwarfs the anti-Semite totem that is Gaza) into flight across Nineveh Province. Blood sodden lunatics waving a similar black flag with Arabic writing on it have been beheading and otherwise executing THOUSANDS of non-Muslims this week in other parts of northern Iraq, like Sinjar. 25,000 children shelter on a desert hill top while bearded madmen go about slaughtering their fathers and raping their mothers. Mindless savages waving such a flag are raging a sub-bestial “jihad” against anyone who does not meet their culturally retarded notions of “purity” (a bit like the Waffen SS but with beards and flip-flops).

THAT is what has happened this week. It is on TV. That is the context and you blithely ignore it; insulting the intelligence of shellfish.

So when demonstrably anti-Semitic Muslims raise a similar flag over their grotty Crooks estate it is clear what they are doing, how they want their action to be understood. And – let’s face it – if they could get their hands on a genuine ISIS flag they would have raised that one.

What is most unsettling but knowing what we know about the Trojan Horse Plot it seems to fit a pattern is the complete lack of concern from the “elders” in these communities. Their lack of action is basically indicative that they approve of what the youngsters are doing. Their acquiescence is tantamount to complicity.

And you are a collaborator.

The context is key but I am not surprised you didn’t notice it. You are just busily sowing classic “disinformation” in the way communists like you typically do.

Downplay and confuse as much as you like but the good people of Britain are certainly and rather belatedly coming to their senses.

@Grave Maurice I agree with everything you say and would only like to add that some of those Islamist ethnic cleansers are actually “British” citizens who are not only taking part in atrocities but are actually tweeting their exploits back to the UK, like some perverted and demonic gap-yearers.

Decades of ‘struggle’ have passed in my sight in the east end yet the bravest they ever get is hiding behind other people’s weapons (where-ever in the world they spit death) so long as they are in service against their ‘enemies’.

A bomb in Iraq – not sectarian madness – but an ‘insurgent’. An IRA pub blast or disappeared civilian – not brutal murder – but fruits of Britain’s ‘rule’. A petrol bomb thrown at a firefighter fighting arson and rescuing children in the riots – not a vicious attack by a criminal drug dealing underclass but a casualties of a ‘class war’.

Pakistan committed an actual genocide in Bangladesh you know? Some of those responsible hold power in my backyard. But why would that bother you?

Always someone else to actually fight the fight though. Always another person the casualty and prisoner.

I’ll tell you this, Communist, the chances of some white, middle class social worker/teacher/lecturer/Phd student throwing a punch or risking arrest are all but nought. I’ve watched your cowardice for many years now. I have observed generations of marchers and shouters and paper sales.

Posers, fakes, angry, empty headed failures an army does not make. You are a like a flea riding on the back of rabid dogs. But just because your lack of insight into history, humanity and the precipice your ‘allies’ (in your head) are rushing towards doesn’t mean anybody is going with you.

You’ve chosen the gutter and expect us to believe it will wash the world clean. The Poplar thugs are just the beginning. Wait as fascism stalks the streets of the east end again.

So much wasted energy in this borough. Did the Mayor start the trend of putting flags up and “the youth” just follow him? If only time and resources were spent on improving the borough instead of trying to sort the rest of the world out.

I think we have eclipsed the Lambeth and Liverpool boroughs of the ’80s. Council workers shake their heads in embarrassment at what goes on in Gladstone place.

I commented on a previous post that people need to distinguish between Politics and Religions – and between politicians and religious leaders.

The actions of Netanyahu should not mean repercussions for Jews living anywhere but particularly not for those living in a completely different country.

The actions of Hammas should not result in the horrendous things which are happening to Muslim people living in Gaza.

Those who seek to confuse religion with territory do absolutely nobody any favours.

Those who promote bigotry and fly flags associated with terrorists in another country will only end up generating a lot of attention for themselves AND their families AND those they associate with by those employed in to fight terrorism in this country. Is that really what they wanted to do?

To me it looks like a really bad case of too much testosterone on a summer’s day and council estate gangs getting badly out of hand. That to my mind is a matter which MUST be addressed by the Police if it is repeated.

Their attitude towards the Police was for me the most chilling aspect of the encounter. It prompts me to wonder when Scotland Yard is going to take a look at the conduct and impact of policing in Tower Hamlets?

In the meantime, both political AND religious leaders need to pursue actions – and be seen to pursue actions – which actively promote social cohesion and provide very firm guidance to some misguided youths.

I remember when I represented St Mary’s ward in 1997 going to the St May’s Community Centre and seeing handdrawn posters wiring the flag of Israel up to a bomb and other anti semitic images in public view. I suggested to the manager of the Centre and to council staff observing their AGM that this was not appropriate and was hardly promoting community cohesion or community use of a building that was being funded very heavily by the Council. They ignored me and a year later they were still there despite my efforts to get our then leader who was a supporter of the centre to intervene. Not surprisingly I was later deselected in that ward but the centre later folded in a welter of claims of corruption…. As someone said the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I have no idea what relevance all the comments about Iraq etc have. All bigotry e.g. against Christians in Iraq, should be condemned.

My main points were:

a) some losers fly a flag – and so what? I can’t say I ever felt my former S London council estates belonged to Millwall FC despite all the grafitti or posters there proclaiming such.

b) if you want to see bigotry, look no further than comments on this blog – this is now reconfirmed above

Also, note the typical weasel words from a former councillor: “the centre later folded in a welter of claims of corruption.”

So is she alleging there was corruption and this closed the centre? No, never anything so straightforward. It’s just throwing some dirt around without care whether it is accurate or not – I’m surprised she was deselected.

* the youths are not doing well at school, or if they had left, while at school

* the youths were bored – no drugs to take, no nice girls to go out with and no attractive and inviting community place to congregate and meet friends from different backgrounds

* the youths lives are empty and meaningless with no real prospects

* the youths generally lack of money

* the community adults, including the mosques, haver failed the youths

Why have the Mayor’s policies not catered for the disaffected Bangladeshi/Bengali youths in His Worship’s borough ?

I think the anti-Jewish sentiment is a simple manifestation of worrying ignorance. Everyone knows people are innocent until proved guilty. How can any local Jews be truthfully accused of partaking in the recent Israeli actions ?

Time for a proper integrated community approach to catering for this disaffected section of the TH population. Let’s start with education, training, skills and introduce a new Human Right – the Right to have a nice girl friend and go out with her.

If TH is supposed to be in England, lets end the stupid, out-of-date and restricted customs imported by often semi-literate people from the Indian sub-continent. It is a fact that youths with nice girlfriends are usually better behaved and more moderate than those without nice girlfriends.

The council failed and so did Neighbourhood Policing (or whatever politically correct name the MPS uses). I wonder if both will start taking their responsibilities more seriously in TH.

Disappointingly you seem to believe a nice girlfriend is no good for anything except for a blow job.

Shame. You do not know what you are missing. Women, including nice girlfriends, are excellent and enjoyable company. Great dancers – usually better than the boys – and nice to talk with and to share non-sexual things.

If you were ever young, and you are honest, you will know that youths can be full of radical, if not outrageous, ideas and ideals. It does not automatically make them terrorists or Jihadists.

Knowledge and education are deficiencies I believed disadvantaged the youths. If those youths had nice girlfriends I suspect they would not waste their time congregating around a flag. The youths were bored because they had nothing else to do in their sad lives.

You did seem to suggest it was sexual frustration which was driving these, erm, SUBHUMAN ANIMALS* to do what they do.

I am sorry to say but there must be something seriously evil about the content of indoctrination which is driving THOUSANDS of young Muslim men around the world to behave in the bestial way that they are. I don’t think a trip to Nandos with a “nice girlfriend” would make a lot of difference somehow.

No I did not infer sex. Having a nice, delightful and pleasant friend, meaning girlfriend, with whom one can enjoy doing things is always preferable to confronting strangers on the street out of boredom.

Sexual frustration can be solved, but only temporarily, by masturbation – a common habit practised by both genders. Anything else is a bonus and some bonuses are fantastic.

I share your concerns about those who seek to indoctrinate vulnerable others. Thankfully the Roman Catholic Church no longer insists school children learn the Catechism like brain-dead parrots. That is not the case with some of Jewish and Moslem faiths who learn their bibles like a child learning their Times Tables (i.e. 9 x 9 = 81). They do not learn the context which existed more than a thousand years ago, they only know the literal meaning.

Kids primarily, and adults secondarily, are products of their environment – meaning their environment influences their thoughts and ideas.

Note the kids said “Jew” or “Jews”” and never mentioned the Jews’ favourite word semitic or Semite. They probably do not have a clue what anti-semitic means or about the Semites who spoke one of a group of closely related west Asian languages or dialects.

Why the Jews should grab the Semite name for themselves is a matter for another day. I do not know why anti-Jewish should be called anti-semitic in preference to Anti-Jewish, when Anti-Christian and anti-Moslem remain the same. Anti-American also remains the same.

If the perceived, by the kids, people responsible for the problems in Gaza were Australian, then the kids would have objected to the presence of Aussies.

Boys, kids, youths in other places would be thinking of other things. In TH there is little for them to do. The pervasive dominance of extreme Moslem beliefs by adults among their community would inevitably influence the attitudes of the kids.

A potential question arises: why are the adults not out working, not out building a better community for all but, it seems, instead fermenting extreme Moslem beliefs?

I would like all Arabic and non-English prayers and sermons in mosques to be replaced by English – the language of the host country. Using English would beneficially improve community integration. The usage of English would also handicap some of the rabble rousers who use the period immediately before Friday’s main prayers to whip-up anti-American and anti-Western sentiment whilst promoting civil unrest in Pakistan. That aggressive and very loud monologue does affect some worshippers. Mosque congregations do vary, of course.

The reason they do it and others don’t is that their minds have been poisoned quite deliberately by parents who have allowed the sort of monsters that want to murder all non Muslims to have access to their kids. Groups like the IFE currently controlling our local council, local schools and the local Mosques.

Yes, having been one of the people that pushed for greater use/opening hours for the Limehouse youth club in about 2006-2007, I think there’s quite a bit of truth in the above.

Basically, we had a lot of random but quite serious ASB on and around Barleymow Estate at that time. Some of it was related to dealing, eventually that was neutralised. However some of it was the usual moneyless, jobless, girlfriendless [and this is hard for these kids, they usually have to escape the gaze of parents, uncles etc.] boredom + the victim message that they are fed from various actors in the surroundings. It diminished perceptibly when the youth club was open a little more.

I’m not excusing any of this and one side of my family are diaspora Jews [as opposed to Israelis, Zionists etc.] but I’d be inclined to look for people that are winding them up than put it all onto the kids. For the kids, let’s find them something more constructive to do.

I’ve left the borough now, but still despair of it, it could be such a different place.

The lack of good and attractive facilities for the local youths can avoid confrontational problems occurring. Remember the old fashioned saying

The devil makes work for idle hands

Well, with the community leadera, the neighbourhood policing operation and the local authority all being detached from the basic needs of the youths, it means the youths are vulnerable to influence and indoctrination by those who wish to create social unrest.

Another old fashioned saying is

nip the problem in the bud

to avoid the problem escalating. We know it makes sense, but do the community figures, the police\’s neighbourhood team and the infamous London Borough of Tower Hamlets ? I suspect not.

Dear southpaw yes there was corruption – issues about misuse of council grants which I wasn’t surprised about because I hardly ever saw the place being used and yes the centre was eventually closed because of it. You only have to look it up in the back issues of the ELA.

However unlike the Dame Colet Centre which also closed for similar reasons, it refounded itself as the Stepney Community Trust in 2004 and is still going and from its website appears to be doing much better. The point of my story however was to show that there is nothing new about anti-Semitic ideas being promoted among young people in the borough and we need to be vigilant about it.

I’m sure I will be corrected if I am wrong but whether it says they should be killed or not, the Koran does say Allah has cursed the Jews several times and quite specifically forbids Muslims from being friends with either Jews or Christians, else be damned. So beyond any politics of the time there is a scriptural impediment to good relations between Muslims and Jews.

Once the Roman Catholic Church tortured and killed those of independent thought. It was extremely vicious – all done in the name of God.

How could any normal person not agree with the Catholic Church that to sail out far across the sea would eventually cause one’s ship to fall off the edge of the flat earth ?

Anyone with brains and the balls to speak-out was a heretic in danger of being murdered on the instructions of God.

Only a few years ago Buddhists were slaughtering Tamils in Sri Lanka. More recently Buddhists slaughtering Moslems in Burma.

Surely it is about time, the Moslem scholars of England produce a modern English language version of the Koran or Quoran and revise the old text which had a different meeting some 1,500 years ago ? Some of the old text specifically related to conditions in those days. Since the conditions have changed for the better, the text should be revised to reflect the context then and the reality now.

“So what if someone puts up a Jihadist flag” asks the quisling Southpawpunch.

A flag which stands for the mass murder of infidels (Shia aren’t even Muslim you know?). Of all Jews, atheists (you?), Christians, Pagans, Zoroastrians, Rastafarians (now you care), Pastafarians and Native American Shamans.

– that don’t convert.

Those Jihadis who shoot a little girl in the head for wishing to learn or go to school. Who capture (to rape) 100’s of Nigerian (Christian) girls or spray machine gun fire into crowds in Mumbai train station or a Kenyan shopping arcade.

And you is like down with them kidz Southpark. Those softie lefties jus tremble at your name n blog like. Hey! You are cool with nuff mass murder. Coz you are an anti-Imperializt-anti-Zionazi. Sometimes (other) people just got to die.

Those Grannies by the seaside should be afeared at your name, right enough. You are tough! Not quite tough enough to use your real name, but hey! The man has his eye on you’s revolutionaries so be cool.

and ‘should the Nazi swastika be banned from public display?’. Go and buy one and walk around a bit. See what happens.

I was young once but my teenage rebellion didn’t quite extend to the idolisation of mass murderer/rapist psychopaths whose core ideology appears to correspond quite closely to “war is peace / freedom is slavery / ignorance is truth”… I quite liked acid house

I am confident those flying the black flag did so as a protest. There are many things wrong in England, including Cameron’s pro-Israel bias, the lack of community facilities in TH for their age group, lack of jobs and opportunities..

I am also confident those flying the black flag were NOT advocating any of the horrors you mentioned. They are kids – give them understanding. As they grow older they will moderate their behaviour. What they need is good adult role models.

Curious, if it was just a black flag that would be one thing…maybe it was just the act of some silly kids…but those silly kids flew that black flag AND then decided to threaten white people with violence and – further – revealed extreme anti-Semitic tendencies.

When I was young, I lived in he same type of LCC flat. There was suspicion when strangers, who looked like they represented authority, came into the flats area bounded by one long block and two shorter blocks.

Perhaps the kids had a similar suspicion ?

Many people threaten but few resort to violence. It depends how one interacts with others. There is an art to “reading” the mood of the different sections of any group and how to calm down things.

It’s all about context – after a disgraceful and divisive election – tower hamlets is truly devided. THF benefit politically from “one tower hamlets” politics (that is the ones that support LR) the damage being done to community relations is massive – government – bring forward a Tower Hamlets Act and take control of this rotten borough

I saw some guys with this flag in Chapman Street last week. They were driving as part of what seemed to be a protest convoy, and had the black flag hoisted on a pole stcking out of the sunroof or a window, and a Palestinian flag draped over the bonnet.

When they reached me, one shouted at me a few times and asked if I was “with us”. I responded that I wasn’t taking sides, and then was accused of being a Zionist.

I did initially wonder whether it was the Isis flag, but when I checked when I got home, it wasn’t.

I suspect that the youths who put up the flag had no idea what it represented but they knew that it would generate a reaction. They will have seen black flags on TV and know that it will have more symbolic power then even a Palestinian flag. I also suspect that they cannot read Arabic (which I can attest is a difficult language to learn).

This is not the first time that people have been threatened by gangs of young youths when asking questions or taking pictures, there was Jerome Taylor in 2010 beaten up by a gang when he asked questions about postal vote fraud.

Like with most things in life education is the answer but we do have a problem with facilities for teenagers. In my ward we have seven ‘community’ facilities but none of them is specifically targeted at the teenagers and young men causing these problems (we have a big ASBO problem in my area). The seven buildings include a sailing centre and two Muslim religious buildings but I suspect none of these are attractive to the young men who put up the flags.

I was wondering where folk get these flags? I can’t imagine the boys sewing them themselves. Do they get them made by a mate or buy them online? They aren’t exactly that easy to source.

There doesn’t seem to be a “good” black flag. Placing the shahada [or other arabic writing] on a black background seems to have taken off around 2001 and are used by various militant islamist groups the most common of which is the “flag of jihad” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flag_of_jihad).

Oddly one of Britain’s main flag suppliers are keen to point out that their Palestine Flag “are made from 100% Ministry of Defence standard knitted polyester”. Do the MOD get a cut on every flag sold?

I find the lack of action by the Metropolitan Police concerning the Blackwall Tunnel incident worrying. Undoubtedly it would be trivial police work to I.D. some of those “protesting” (CCTV galore around the tunnel – look for when no cars are exiting the tunnel and then when cars resume the first ones out are protesters). I wouldn’t be surprised if the counter-terrorism services (MI5/Scotland Yard) have the footage and now have the young men on a monitoring/watch-list? (Just this week a Bethnal Green resident has been found guilty of under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and will be sentenced this week).

JohnJee – Your last paragraph is vital. Surely Blackwall Tunnel has more cameras and security than MI5, but I suppose as usual the police are content to sit on their hands and do f***k all, cos they’re scared!

Just to put my last post in proportion….Recently the police were called to a domestic incident on my estate. SEVEN police cars, ONE police van, ONE ambulance, TWO motorcycle police and about 20 police officers. Easy option for them? Blackwall Tunnel too difficult?

This blog post and comments are so over the top and off the mark that I am not going to even bother airing my thoughts of what is actually going on in TH estates.
It just goes to prove how ignorant and out of touch most of the regular commentators are of TH youth and socio-economic and cultural-religious-political dynamics at play!! Is it any wonder that Labour / Tories / UKIP have such little relevance or appeal amongst the youth in this borough.
Ignorance is bliss 🙂

The black flag of death is once again flying back over the gates of the Will Crooks Estate. The “mainstream” Muslims at that estate have done nothing to prevent it from being put back and have not taken it down. I have just seen discussions by people on Facebook who are planning to go down there in a large group and rip it down…who knows what will happen. The police are totally failing to do their jobs and Lutfur – if you are listening – you have clearly incited racial hatred, it cannot be denied.

As for the meaning of that flag… this horrifyingly evil video explains.

Re: “mainstream” behavior, read also William Shirer’s Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich. His description of the indifference of Berliners to amassed troops marching out to war, in the earliest days of the Poland action, is reminded to me by your comment. Of course the great majority of all people’s will never resort to extreme behavior by preference, but when we are confronted with the “sight”, in plain view, of a different café society watching on, blasé, whilst their brethren enact atrocious scenes, if not atrocities, are we not all too close to the inevitability of being “mainstream” ourselves, or “moderates”, looking on, bemused, confused even, powerless? It is a frightening thought, because we are, save our freedom of speech, which I fear is oft eroded by self censorship as much as it is by genuine censorship caused by social tolerances, political correctness of the misapplied and suffocating kind, by fear of “he said she said” being all that lies between us and accusation of racism misapplied… yet we are, by default, quite possibly powerless, because, if you allow this extreme reductio, the wars we have known have escalated upon unimaginable but acute incidents, as the saying is, sliced so thinly. We all need, on all sides, intolerant policing of overt intolerance.

Even writing this, even blogs such as this, I believe incline individuals to self censorship, even by virtue of moderation, but also because though the power to write and be read is almost universal, the rules of significance of a once scarce resource and soft power, the printed, distributable, word, I feel are applied to individuals as if they had the import and responsibility of newspapers and published organs did, when the act of publishing was vastly more significant. I actually think that there might need to be even more tolerance of what can be perceived as incitement online, proportionate to audience and a reasonable man’s test of the power of the publishing organ. My logic is that, for all people, even those who would promulgate deeply offensive messages, there ought to be a threshold of considering, e.g. online communication, measured by a kitchen or samizdat test. In that we increasingly week out what we mean to consume, via search engines, I think that a lot of the provocative nature of online argument is lost. My concern only extends to Ted’s question, above, as to whether the kids youths or whoever they are, actually knowing what it is they are parroting, as I commented upon the update post thread to this entry, my prep school once erupted in anti Jewish sentiment, quickly and effectively extinguished, and I think it was extinguished because it was no more than a fad gone wrong. Young people need it be able to learn from their mistakes, not always be punished and thereby potentially alienated from society or pushed into a corner. I don’t see anyways way to apply this theory as doctrine, but I think it would be a fair argument to bring in defense of misguided youngsters, if they were charged with inciting hatred.

This, however, form Ted’s report, chilled me:

“there’s going to be a incident if you stay”

Feels all too close to a threat, to me.

I personally feel simply unwell and disturbed by it all. How sad.

But my thought about proportionality of online discussion and the threshold of “incitement” is applicable I think, here, because I would rather someone protest online, than in the fashion here reported.

Bigotry should be condemned in all guises and rightfully so in this particular instance.

I find these particular sentences quite worrying:

“The bigger, troubling question for him, however, is does he have a problem with a significant section of the youths in his borough?

It may well be that yesterday’s incident was just local hooligans looking for a cause and identity, and acting territorially on their estate.

But I think there’s probably more to it than that. They seemed to want a Jew-free zone.”

Worrying how Jeory, being the responsible journalist that he is, takes one isolated incident and undermines the youth of the borough in his summary, by doing so inflaming the situation even further.

I do however agree that these kids need to be educated. Judaism and Jews are not at fault here. They need to know the difference between Judaism and Zionism and be able to channel their criticism at the Israeli state and not at Jews. Just like orthodox Islam is not at fault for ISIS, orthodox Judaism is not at fault for Zionism.

ISIS and Zionists both belong to genocidal death cults. Both deserve equal criticism.

As for the black flag it needs to be reclaimed by Muslims, just like the flag of St.George has been reclaimed to some extent by genuine English Patriots, from the NF, EDL and C18. The young man on Newsnight explained quite clearly how he felt the black flag represented unity, and a mark of solidarity with Muslims suffering in Gaza.

The bigoted abuse must not be tolerated and adults in the community need to be made aware what the youth are getting upto. sometimes I wonder at what parent’s think their role is in raising children? Discrimination and abuse is never acceptable. I am very disappointed at what has been described as it reflects badly on Tower Hamlets. We do a great job being tolerant let’s all stand up to this united to isolate them and show them that intimidation and intolerance has no place in Tower Hamlets.

I have skimmed through the comments and it appears that some people like to say that these kids were behaving in this way because the Quran told them. Most Bengali kids only ever learn to read the Quran and never understand it in Arabic, these kids are more likely to be influenced by peers or radical groups, controlling these outlets will probably be most effective. I know that all religious books have bits which are unpalatable to modern society but the fact is the vast majority of people following a religion choose not to follow through with these bits. Why is it difficult to believe Muslims are able to not act upon unsavoury parts of religion but Jewish and Christian people can? All these religions have guidance which offends our sensitivity. bits of bad advice in a holy book does not make a follower bad, they are only bad when they choose to act upon the advice of the holy book. Mostly if I disagree with something in a holy book I will expect God to come and do His dirty work, it’s not like he needs the help of a mere mortal like me. If it doesn’t sit well with my conscience God gave me free will to not take action. I don’t have a problem with some people, if God has a problem that’s His problem. When people like to criticise others using people’s religion they need to remember the very important fact that people have free will and stuff written in a thousand+ years old book can’t actually force people to do stuff. Evil people like to justify their action but they did it of their own volition.

I don’t live on the Will Crooks Estate or know anybody that does. But like the other commentators on this blog who don’t live there and don’t know anybody that does either, I would like to share my “insights” with you.

There are 2 possibilities for the Black Flag event.

An ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State sleeper cell has activated on the estate and all Kafirs who value there lives should run away up a mountain.

Some young Muslim men who are naturally sympathetic to the plight and hardships of their fellow Muslims are ANGRY. They are angry at what they perceive as the see no evil, hear no evil of the British political elite in regards to Israel’s war on the the people of Palestine. The message of the Black flag is “**** you” to the said political elite.

To be fair, neither Mr. Cameron or Mr. Miliband have internet access and have no idea of the death and destruction that has taken place in Gaza.